TIME TO PROTEST: SOME would explain the localised BNP success in the recent elections on the basis that whites in areas with large immigrant communities are ignorant and bigoted about immigration, while those in almost exclusively white areas are well-informed and enlightened.

I find this implausible.

It seems more likely that the attitude to immigration of those in Liberal Democrat-voting white towns, such as Harrogate, is one of "Not our problem". They will eventually discover that it is.

They should bear in mind we are in a political phase when you can't put a cigarette paper between the main parties. It couldn't matter less which is in power, except to those on the payroll. Now is a time when we can afford to make a protest vote over some supremely important issue.

It is said the protestors will return to traditional voting patterns for the general election. I hope that votes do go back to one or more of the main parties, but only after they have done something to deserve them.

I hope voters will not be soft-soaped by the usual two-faced mutterings about understanding our concerns. I hope they hold out for cast-iron guarantees that the door will be closed. - John Riseley, Harrogate.

LOCAL ELECTIONS

AFTER the recent local elections, which were held mainly in the South, we now see many unseated and previously long-term Labour councillors wailing and weeping. Many are now calling for Prime Minister Tony Blair to be replaced as leader of the Labour Party.

All of these people enthusiastically praised the same man when he changed the Labour Party from a socialist party to a right-wing grouping of his like-minded friends and pretended to maintain that the party was still holding to the true values of the party, even when he totally ignored any resolution that was carried by the membership at every Labour Party conference.

I only hope that at next year's elections, which will be held in our part of the country, the Labour voters will remember that when we voted not to have a regional assembly all our local councillors chose to ignore the result when told to by this New Labour and even went as far as trying to privatise the houses many of us rent from the council because Tony Blair told them it was the thing to do. - Peter Dolan, Newton Aycliffe.

ROLL ON 2009

LIFE must be great for David Cameron at the moment. Having smashed the inept and divided Labour Party, and stopped any sign of a Liberal Democrat revival under the fumbling Sir Menzies Campbell, all Mr Cameron had to do was sit back and let the votes flow to him.

He will, however, have to work for his money in the Euro Elections 2009. By then, Tony Blair will finally have been toppled and a leadership battle settled - the new John Reid-led Labour Party may be resurgent and ready to attack.

Where will the chameleon position his new centrist Tory party? Will they be pro-Euro or anti-Euro? If he chooses pro-Euro, as expected, the disenfranchised right-thinking Tory sceptics will vote BNP/UKIP, further populising the British far right. They, in return, will tear into his wavering position.

It is then that we will see if this new Conservative leader has anything to offer. His current dour persona makes John Major and Iain Duncan Smith look inspirational. - Mark Anderson, Middleton St George.

GOING, GOING...

IT looks as though this could well be the last term in power of the Labour Party. With the Conservatives gaining many seats throughout the country and the BNP winning 11 out of 13 seats it fought in Barking and Dagenham, east London, maybe Tony Blair and his supporters will now listen to the people of Great Britain.

For nine years we have been governed by an anti-British government, and if Scottish socialist Gordon Brown takes over, then the British identity will be destroyed.

Hopefully, this will not be the case, as I pray that a new government is elected in three years and stops this once proud nation from sinking underneath the treacherous rule of the Labour Party. - Christopher Wardell, Darlington.

FARM SUPPORT

JANE Midgely, of the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR), provides another example of the ludicrous situation we find ourselves in regarding EU funding (HAS, Apr 28).

This process involves us making billions in contributions to the EU. After EU corruption and bureaucracy we get back some proportion, which various sectors in the country then fight over in the hope of getting a fair share. The latest battle now appears to be to "transfer financial resources from farm support towards broader rural measures". Given the parlous state English farming is in, would it not be better to: 1) Fight for a fair share of our contributions back from the EU; 2) Justify why our budget should be drastically reduced by funding new entrants to the EU and conceding our well-justified agricultural rebate; 3) Persuade the Government that although rural areas do not feature strongly in voting terms they still need a fair share of support; 4) Campaign against the likelihood of 20 per cent voluntary national modulation on payments, which would have huge competitive disadvantages for England; 5) Apply for some of the accrued interest on cash the Government has kept from farmers by holding Single Farm Payments for months without any sign of compensation? - John Heslop, Gainford, near Darlington.

PRICE OF THE EU

IN reply to Councillor Geoff Mowbray (HAS, Apr 29) it may be correct that "council taxpayers" do not directly pay for Wear Valley District councillor Olive Brown's EU Committee of the Regions (CoR) trips - that is, not unless they also pay income tax, national insurance, VAT, petrol duty, or any other tax squeezed out of the "paying" public by Chancellor Gordon Brown - who then sends the money, on our behalf, to the EU.

However, via the Freedom of Information Act, local Conservatives now know that Wear Valley District Council contributed to the cost of the EU Committee of the Regions' grandiose meal in Auckland Castle last September - council taxpayers' money perhaps?

Members of the EU CoR don't represent local people, they represent the EU community. A briefing to those members says: "They may not be bound by any mandatory instructions and shall be completely independent in the performance of their duties, in the general interest of the Community."

Roughly speaking, in recent years, prior to Tony Blair's rebate give-away, people in the Wear Valley have been contributing £7m a year towards the money which the British Government gives to the EU - dwarfing anything that Councillors Brown and Chris Foote Wood (LibDem member of the EU CoR) are ever likely to recover for us. - Jim Tague, Bishop Auckland Conservatives.

LAUGHING STOCK

WE are more concerned with having ID cards for the law-abiding citizens of our country while the same people in charge do not know how many foreigners are entering our country every year.

The incentive with our system must be the laughing stock of the world - everyone welcome, to be looked after on benefits providing you were not born here. - N Tate, Darlington.